ROT!

June 20, 2009 — jeffstrand

More zombie stuff, this time a novella by Michele Lee called ROT, sent to me by the friendly but totally depraved folks at Skullvines Press. I assumed that ROT was a horror/comedy, since that’s the kind of Skullvines stuff I’ve read (TWISTED TALES FOR SICK PUPPIES by Mark McLaughlin, I WAS A SASQUATCH SEX SLAVE by Jerrod Balzer and S.D. Hintz, and SLOPPY SECONDS, a collection of gross-out stories by Wrath James White). The opening of ROT seemed to confirm this…but though the book does have some morbid laughs in it, it’s definitely not a humorous tale.

This one falls into the category of “the less you know about it, the better,” so all I’ll say plot-wise is that it’s about a security guard at what is sort of a nursing-care facility for zombies, where the undead are checked in by loved ones and stay until they’ve rotted away. You wouldn’t think that such a business could have a darker side, but…

ROT is a definite winner. It’s well-written, has lots of plot twists, characters we care about, and it strikes more emotional chords than you’d probably expect in a novella about flesh-eating zombies. And though I said it’s not a comedy, it does have the following line:

“It wasn’t unlike watching someone bite into a large tomato, if a tomato had bones and screamed.”

This one’s set for July or August from Skullvines Press (though it’s not on the site yet). Watch for it.